Tag Archives: weekly features

Several years ago, I started up a weekly feature here at Bookshelf Fantasies called Thursday Quotables:

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

For anyone who pays attention to such things, you may have noticed that I’ve really slacked off when it comes to weekly posts. In fact, I just realized that my last Thursday Quotables post was for Thankgsgiving — and even then, it was a repost of a holiday favorite, not a brand-new “quotable” discovery.

So what’s going on?

Well, the answer is simply that I’ve lost a little motivation when it comes to doing TQ posts according to a fixed weekly schedule. I’m finding that when I come across lines or quote that I love in whatever books I’m reading, I tend to go ahead and include them in my review posts. Or else, I get so caught up when I’m reading an amazing book that I don’t stop to highlight or flag the parts I want to come back to, because I’m focused on the reading itself and not thinking about posting about the reading.

At this point, I think I need to acknowledge that I’m not going to keep up with Thursday Quotables as a weekly blogging event here on my blog. When inspiration strikes, I’m sure I’ll continue to do occasional TQ posts, but I’d rather not feel like I need to hold myself to a schedule.

For those of you who participate in Thursday Quotables… well, great! Keep going! Come back and share your links with me, either here or on social media, whenever you feel like it. I’d love to see what you’re up to.

This isn’t good-bye for Thursday Quotables… maybe it’s more like “see ya when I see ya”!

Of course, if anyone is interested in “adopting” Thursday Quotables and taking it on as a new host, send me a message and let me know. Meanwhile, I’ll continue my TQ posts… when I feel like it.

Ah, the freedom!

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Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Reblogging my Thanksgiving Thursday Quotables from last year (and the year before), since I really don’t think I can do better than celebrating with Buffy!

In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d depart book-world for this week’s Thursday Quotables post and turn instead to one of my very favorite Thanksgiving moments, the “Pangs” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Willow: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It’s a sham. It’s all about death

Buffy: It *is* a sham. But it’s a sham with yams. It’s a yam sham.

Willow: You’re not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one.

Giles – “…It’s very common for Indian spirits to change to animal form.”

Buffy – “Yeah, well it’s plenty uncommon for me to freeze up during a fight. I mean, I had the guy, I was ready for the takedown and I stopped. And ‘Native American’.”

Giles – “Sorry?”

Buffy – “We don’t say ‘Indian’.”

Giles – “Oh, right. Yes, yes. Um, always behind on the terms. Still trying not to refer to you lot as ‘Bloody Colonials’.”

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving, filled with friends, family, laughter… and pie.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!

Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.

After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.

Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Like this:

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!

Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:

Indexing: Reflections by Seanan McGuire(published 2016)

Because I’m “reading” this series via audiobook, it’s taking me quite a while. So, for the second week in a row, I just have to share a few passages from Reflections, which has been keeping me riveted (and occasionally snorting with laughter) on my morning commutes. First, an ominous passage:

The air was cold, and the wind tasted of apples, and something was very, very wrong.

Ooh. Chills, right?

And a moment that made me laugh, courtesy of my favorite character Sloane, who is tough as nails and talks like a Valley Girl:

I produced my badge from my pocket and held it up for the camera to see. “Agent Sloane Winters, ATI Management Bureau. We’re with the United States Government; we’re allowed to punch people if we want to.”

“Please tell me that’s not going to be our new motto,” said Demi.

And finally:

I glared at her for a moment before I started striding toward the entrance to the maze. “I hate you,” I said.

“I know,” said Ciara, following me.

“I’m going to play jump rope with your intestines.”

“Won’t that be fun for both of us.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!

Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.

Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!

Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:

Indexing: Reflections by Seanan McGuire(published 2016)

I’m thoroughly enjoying my audiobook adventures with the Indexing series by Seanan McGuire (you can check out my review of book #1 here), and thought I’d share a funny, don’t f-with-me little snippet for this week’s Thursday Quotable.

Sloane sauntered into the observation room like she didn’t have a care in the world, and scowled when she saw the coffee cup in my hand. “I came for coffee,” she said. “If you have consumed all the coffee, I am going to straight-up fucking murder you, and drink a latte out of your skull.”

I get it. I have those mornings sometimes too.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!

Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.

Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Do you have any good ghost stories to recommend? What’s on your Halloween TTT? Share your link, please, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and I’m always looking for new additions! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info.

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Somehow, I got myself all scrambled up with TTT topics, so I posted this week’s topic — Top Ten Unique Book Titles — last week instead. Rather than skip a week or repeat myself, I thought I’d do a variation on the theme.

For this week, I’m focusing on a unique kind of book title — titles that are one word only, and that one word is the name of a character in the book (or even a character mentioned but never seen, as in #9, below). And since I’m creating rules for my post, I’m only including books that I’ve actually read.

What book titles made your list this week? Share your link, please, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

(And PS – do you have any favorite books with a one-word character name as a title? Please let me know!)

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and I’m always looking for new additions! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!

Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:

Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead by Paul Vigna(published 2017)

I’m actually very late to the party when it comes to The Walking Dead and its fandom. I only started watching the series this past spring, but after some marathon binges, I’m all caught up and completely hooked. Naturally, I couldn’t resist this new release. Please excuse me for fangirling out over Guts!

For my Quotables this week, first, something I just thought was funny:

The Walking Dead’s zombies are mostly “live,” which means they are actors under makeup playing out their horror in real time, though for certain shots the crew will add computer-generated effects (they did not, for instance, cut the actress Melissa Cowan in half for her role as Bicycle Girl).

Sorry about the sick humor. This makes me laugh.

And here’s a paragraph that helps to explain why so many of us love this show so, so much:

That deeper level is something that comes after special effects, after jump scares and exploding bodies. It’s something that can be explored not through the dead, but only through the living. What makes The Walking Dead work is that it shows people who are broken, afraid, courageous, insane, upright, duplicitous, noble, foolhardy, and just plain hardy as all hell. In a word, it explores what’s in a person’s heart.

And finally, the author quotes a writer for a TWD fansite:

“A show like The Walking Dead tells us that no matter what happens, if you are loyal to the people you love, […] you can conquer anything.”

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!

Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.

Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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***Right after posting, I realized that I’m a week ahead on TTT topics! Oh well, better early than never, right? Leaving this right here…***

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Top Ten Unique Book Titles. I did a similar post back in 2013 (here), so I had to work pretty hard to come up with a new batch of awesome book titles.

Here are my top ten, in no particular order:

1) Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire: I love how the title so perfectly captures the spooky, ghoulish feel of the book.

2) Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day (review): Another by Seanan McGuire — I just really like the sound of all those “D” words in the title, and the way that the title signals that something unusual and otherworldly is about to happen.

3) Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies by Michael Ausiello (review): Author Ausiello is a TV critic, and it’s just so perfect that he’s used TV jargon for the title of his very personal and sad memoir.

4) Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon: You didn’t think I’d get through a whole top 10 list without mentioning Outlander, did you? Book #9 isn’t out yet, and doesn’t even have a release date… but it does have a title, and the title is pretty cool.

5) The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Shumer: Ha, I love her spin on the title. It’s perfect, really.

6) The Porcupine of Truth by Bill Konigsburg: The book was okay, but the title really rocks.

7) My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (review): The title says it all!

8) William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher: This book was such a delicious surprise. The re-writing of Star Wars as Shakespearean verse is a must for literary-minded fangirls and fanboys. Here’s a little sample.

9) Intro to Alien Invasion by Owen King: An awesome graphic novel about an alien invasion on a college campus. I loved that the title captures the feel of a required course.

10) You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day (review): Geeks, unite! If Felicia Day says we’re never weird, then it must be true.

What book titles made your list this week? Share your link, please, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and I’m always looking for new additions! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

Like this:

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!

Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:

Marine Biology by Gail Carriger(published 2010)

When there’s too much seriousness in my life, I know I can reach for a Gail Carriger story to lift my spirits. I originally read Marine Biology when it came out, but as there’s now a related novel, The Sumage Solution, I figured this was a good time to read it again. Marine Biology is a cute, sweet, supernatural story — set in the modern world, not Carriger’s trademark steampunk Victorian society, but full of her wit and cleverness.

Here’s the opening paragraph, which makes more sense if you keep in mind that the main character is a gay werewolf scientist:

The problem, Alec thought gloomily, swishing a test-tube full of seawater, is that I’m unexpectedly alive. To be unexpectedly dead would be pleasingly simplistic. After all, he made up the statistic on the spot so that he would sound more learned in his own head, half of all deaths are unexpected. One is, to a certain degree, prepared to die unexpectedly. But when one expects to die at eighteen and instead finds oneself unexpectedly alive at twenty-four, there’s nothing for it but to be confused about everything.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!

Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.

Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Like this:

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!

Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:

Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon(published 2003)

So yeah, I’m a bit of an Outlander fan. And one of the stand-out characters of the series is Lord John Grey, such a complicated, distinctive individual that Diana Gabaldon decided to give him his own set of novels and stories.

My book club is currently doing a Lord John readalong — great fun. Besides John’s dignity and honor, he’s also highly intelligent and has a very dry (but enormously entertaining) sense of humor.

Here’s a tiny snippet of a Lord John moment that made me happy this week:

Quarry grunted in response to this, and lay back in his chair, smoking fiercely and scowling at the ceiling in concentration. Indolent by nature, Harry Quarry disliked thinking, but he could do it when obliged to.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!

Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.

Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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Disclaimer:

I occasionally receive review copies of books from publishers or via NetGalley. For all reviews, the source of the book I’m reviewing is identified in the details section at the end of the review. All reviews reflect my honest opinions, regardless of source.